A data grid is an architecture or set of services that gives individuals or groups of users the ability to access, modify and transfer extremely large amounts of geographically distributed data for research purposes. An in-memory data grid (IMDG) is a data structure that resides entirely in RAM (random access memory), and is distributed among multiple servers. In-memory data grid (IMDG) solutions typically provide security restrictions, such as key-based access as to who may access the data. While an IMDG solution may optimize data access, it can also be limiting as compared to the relational type access that relational databases offer.